Insignificance (1985)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Nicolas Roeg

Writer:

Terry Johnson (writer)

Release Date:

2 August 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Comedy

Tagline:

The object of every man's fantasy and the greatest mind of the century are about to meet.

Plot:

Four 1950's icons meet in the same hotel room and two of them discover more in common between them than they ever anticipated.

Plot Keywords:

Albert Einstein | 1950s | Marilyn Monroe | Joe Dimaggio | Whistle

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Michael Emil	...	The Professor
Theresa Russell	...	The Actress
Tony Curtis	...	The Senator
Gary Busey	...	The Ballplayer
Will Sampson	...	Elevator Attendant
Patrick Kilpatrick	...	Driver
Ian O'Connell	...	Assistant Director
George Holmes	...	Actor
Richard Davidson	...	Director of Photography
Mitchell Greenberg	...	Technician
Raynor Scheine	...	Autograph Hunter
Jude Ciccolella	...	Gaffer
Lou Hirsch	...	Charlie
Ray Charleson	...	Bud
Joel Cutrara	...	Bar Drunk

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:M | New Zealand:R13 | UK:15 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Recorded Picture Company (RPC)

Trivia:

The four icons are, respectively: Marilyn Monroe, her husband Joe DiMaggio, Albert Einstein and senator Joseph McCarthy.

Quotes:

The Actress: I only said I knew, because you said you knew.
The Professor: I lied. Knowledge isn't truth. It's just mindless agreement. You agree with me, I agree with someone else - we all have knowledge. We haven't come any closer to the truth. You can never understand anything by agreeing, by making definitions. Only by turning over the possibilities. That's called thinking. If I say I know, I stop thinking. As long as I keep thinking, I come to understand. That way, I might approach some truth.

Movie Connections:

Features Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

Soundtrack:

Wild Hearts

Great Cinematic Experience

The collaboration between Nicolas Roeg and his wife Theresa Russell is one of the greatest between a director and an actress in film history, ranking right up there with Sternberg/Dietrich and Griffith/Gish. This is one of the fruits. Russell is "The Actress" (Marilyn Monroe) in a phantasmagoric nightpiece that brings together her, Albert Einstein, Senator Joe McCarthy, and Joe Dimaggio in a 1950s New York hotel during the filming of The Seven-Year Itch. The encounters between the four are mind-bending and richly entertaining, especially Monroe's delirious explanation of the special theory of relativity, using toy trains and balloons, for a delighted Einstein. (Monroe was a closet want-to-be intellectual, surprisingly well-read and capable of thoughtful comments in interviews.) Roeg's directing style is rich, propulsive, wonderfully matched to the material (which began as a stage play, although there's nothing the least stagy here, or gratuitously "opened out", either). The apocalyptic finale is fully the equal of the most comparable scene I can think of, the house-destruction at the end of Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. A not-to-be-missed experience. (By the way: what has become of Russell? Like Debra Winger, another of the great talents of her generation and her acting partner in Black Widow, she has hit her forties and Hollywood responds by giving these amazing performers nothing whatsoever to do. It's a darn shame. I'd look for Russell in more Roeg films, of course, but he seems to be in hiding too.)